State power depends on borrowing the bodies of its subjects

Evidence

What Hobbes did, La Boétie had tried to undo, and by the same means. After all, the master who oppresses you and “for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death … where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you?” Therein lay the fundamental material contradiction: if power is embodied solely by our bodies, we can always refuse to offer them. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 695

Categorization

• XREF: Sets up the drone-state contrast: power that no longer needs subject bodies to be held. — connects to: State dependence on soldiers’ bodies secured social bargaining power; Substituting capital for soldiers gives the state social autonomy; State power depends materially on the bodies citizens lend it. (+22 more)

Related

• State power depends materially on the bodies citizens lend it. (similarity 0.92)
• State dependence on soldiers’ bodies secured social bargaining power (similarity 0.86)
• State power requires mobilized bodies and collapses without them (similarity 0.86)
• Dronization trades the state’s social branch for its armed branch. (similarity 0.82)
• State coercion works only because most citizens comply voluntarily (similarity 0.82)
• Substituting capital for soldiers gives the state social autonomy (similarity 0.82)
• Without mobilized bodies there is no state power, only violence. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• State power requires mobilized bodies and collapses without them #corroborates (0.90) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 697
• Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy #expands (0.85)
• Bureaucratic inscription gave the state predictive power over deserters #exemplifies (0.65)
• Critique from within colonial power is constrained by personal dependence on that system #exemplifies (0.60)
• Subtler punishment masked sovereign power rather than making it more humane #exemplifies (0.60)
• Discoursing on power differs fundamentally from being silenced by it #exemplifies (0.50)